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Tesla Robotaxis Reportedly Crashing at a Rate That's 4x Higher Than Humans (gizmodo.com)
submitted 6 months ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Self-driving cars are often marketed as safer than human drivers, but new data suggests that may not always be the case.

Citing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Electrek reports that Tesla disclosed five new crashes involving its robotaxi fleet in Austin. The new data raises concerns about how safe Tesla’s systems really are compared to the average driver.

The incidents included a collision with a fixed object at 17 miles per hour, a crash with a bus while the Tesla vehicle was stopped, a crash with a truck at four miles per hour, and two cases where Tesla vehicles backed into fixed objects at low speeds.

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[–] 0 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Well Waymo isn't assigning blame, it's a third party assessment based on the information released about those accidents. The strongest point remains that fatal accidents are rare enough that there simply isn't enough data to claim any statistical significance for these events. The overall accident rate for which data is sufficient remains significantly lower than the US average.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    They have influence with the police and regulators, and insurance companies, to avoid blame.

    They are on limited routes, at lower speeds, so they won't have a higher fatality rate. If you compared human drivers for that same stretch of road it would also be zero. You can't compare human drivers on expressways during rush hour with waymo's trip between the airport and the hotels on a mapped out route that doesn't go on the expressway.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    It is obviously false that fatal accidents would be "zero" on the roads Waymos are limited to, it's ridiculous to even suggest such a thing. What is true that such accidents are even more rare there though. It's another good reason for why it makes no sense to solely focus on fatal accidents as they are unlikely to be involved in them anyway due to these limits. That's in addition to the fact that the statistical analysis is simply impossible with current vehicle miles.

    Now, I'm not saying we know for certain Waymo is much safer than a human as the current statistics imply, that is going to require more rigorous studies. I would say what we've got is good enough to say that nothing points to them being particularly unsafe.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    What do you mean, you are comparing dangerous driving spots to safe driving spots. No shit the highway entry ramps have more fatal accidents than the leisure cruise in the 8 lane road from the airport to the hotel. And yes, human drivers on that leisure cruise would have a different rate of accidents than on the death ramps on the expressways.

    Not acknowledging that point, and misrepresenting it, doesn't speak well to your credibility here, it's a simple and unarguable point.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I provided a counterpoint and now you've moved your goalposts to just ramps. The fact is that there is no reason to believe the roads Waymos utilize are generally safer than roads on average. But that doesn't really even matter because the studies that have been done about this do account for different types of environments anyway and point to Waymos having fewer accidents.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    Your goalpost distraction argument is rather played out in defending monied interests' businesses. You misunderstood an argument on purpose, and refuse to admit the point, losing all credibility. Obscuring the issue with slander is all you have because you can't use reason, because your arguments aren't reasonable.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You're literally not addressing any of my points and just accusing me of things I didn't even do. I could be arguing with an LLM and get responses that make more sense so I'm done, thanks.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    You refused to admit that you are comparing a risky driving set against a non risky driving set of data, then personal accusations that don't make sense when called on not admitting the point you denied. Stop talking to me.

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